I was to discover that many people in Alberta seemed perpetually to hurry. The light air and so much sunshine maybe had something to do with it

Ronald laughed, took a glance at my inelegant figure and said: “At this rate we’ll need it!” Then he took to speculating. “It will be good if we have a little girl this time, but another boy would be OK. How proud I would be to have four sons!” I drew closer to him on the couch and gave him a hug.

Ronald broke the silence in a matter of fact manner. “The lavatory leaves a lot to be desired.” “Yes,” I said. It stood among the spruce trees at the back of the house and was small, dark and freezing.

“There’s one thing,” I said, “there won’t be many germs about at this time of year. That’s about the only good aspect of the little house that I can think of.”

“And there really is a ‘can’ at the door!” Ronald laughed. “I’d heard about ‘life in the backwoods’ but I don’t think I quite believed it until now.”

Once we’d stopped laughing, Ronald left the subject and turned his attention to the electricity.

The wiring was in a bad way and the switches temperamental.

Danger

It had been hastily and badly put in and none too recently. Ronald was more aware of the danger than I was. I felt that our lives were in the hands of God anyway and being of an optimistic nature, that God was kind.

Here I could have been quite wrong. Many shacks went on fire in the backwoods. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I wasn’t aware of this at the time.

The days that followed were, for me, a time of isolation. I got no encouragement to go and speak to Mrs Muller and she didn’t come near me.

Ronald was away long hours. There was no telephone, radio or postman. I would have welcomed a visit from a curious Indian, but there was no one.

Then one afternoon, about two weeks after our arrival, a little ordinary lady, warmly furred and neatly hatted, sailed down the track. She seemed to come from nowhere and was a member of the tribe Jehovah’s Witness.

Firmly clasped to her ample bosom, she carried copies of the inevitable Watchtower. Jehovah himself could not have got a bigger welcome.

She came to me as a saviour, although not the kind she had in mind. I asked her to sit on the Winnipeg couch, gave her tea and biscuits and plied her with questions about our new unknown world called Canada.

Somewhat stunned and subdued, she answered my questions politely, as best she could, and handed me a Watchtower, her trademark, in exchange for some cents and then left.

In those two weeks, apart from the night we arrived, I had seen Maud Muller only once, and that was early on Tuesday morning when she took me into Red Deer in the Dodge to get groceries. She was in a hurry.

Later, I was to discover that many people in Alberta seemed perpetually to hurry. The light air and the influence of so much sunshine maybe had something to do with it.

Courage

Here, on this high plateau, although we didn’t appear to be anywhere near elevated ground, we were actually living 3,000 feet above sea level. Here, the air was rarer.

That early Tuesday morning, we bowled along the gravel road at considerable speed, with Mrs Muller, myself and three sleepy boys in the cab of the yellow Dodge truck, milk cans swaying in the back.

Halfway to Red Deer I summoned up the courage to ask if there was a dentist in the town.

“We have everything in Red Deer,” she answered with considerable pride. “I have a tooth that is very painful. Would it be possible to get it out?”

“I’ll make an appointment for you,” she said. “Leave it to me.”

She volunteered no further information and I left it at that. I didn’t mention a doctor. I thought one at a time was enough.

To give Mrs Muller her due I felt she would have liked to have said and done more to help. She looked tired. Her hair was mousey and plain. Her weathered brow more furrowed than it should have been for someone I guessed would be in her late thirties. Her rather delicate hands were rough, coarsened by work and weather, her grey eyes noncommittal and weary.

It was hard to imagine a smile from her colourless lips.

I guessed she was frightened of her Germanic husband and didn’t dare cross him. I learned later that life on the land was tough for everyone here.

If we thought we had a hard luck story, it was minor beside many we came to hear about. People just didn’t complain.

Maud Muller never mentioned that several years ago her home had been burned down and that they had lived for two years in the hen house until they built their chalet with their own hands.

Appointment

On the way home Mrs Muller announced: “I’ve made an appointment for you at the dentist at 8.30 on a Tuesday morning.” She mentioned a date a month further on.

“A whole month!” I couldn’t help remonstrating. “In Scotland, if you’re in much pain, a dentist will take you right away.” “They don’t here,” she said. I could see the subject was closed. Little else was said on the homeward journey in the truck that rattled more now that the milk cans were empty.

She did throw out the information, however, that everyone around these parts had some sort of vehicle of their own but gave no hint as to how the purchase of such a necessity could be accomplished.

In fact, she quickly closed the subject before I could say, “But how?”.

One evening, after we had been at Redwoods for several weeks, when the children were fast asleep and we were sitting on our one and only seat-comebed in front of the log stove, Ronald came out with: “Muller is keeping me prisoner here. I don’t know what his game is and I don’t like it.

“I expected hard work when I came to Canada but this goes over the score. Five in the morning till seven at night with hardly a break for a meal and only a Sunday afternoon off.”

(More tomorrow.)